Ingraham: Trump's victory has been a hurdle for CNN; Did FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn?

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," June 27, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." This is a Fox News Alert. Tonight, CNN facing a massive credibility crisis. President Trump is now calling out the network's fake news and their extreme bias. Laura Ingraham will join us tonight with reaction. Also tonight, Monica Crowley, Eric Bolling, Sara Carter, John Solomon and Jay Sekulow will all join us.

Now, I also want you to get a pen and a pad out. I'm going to explain the six things that America now needs to be investigating.

Also tonight, our explosive interview with a former elite American soldier on how the Obama administration absolutely blew the opportunity to take out the leader of ISIS. It will be a "Hannity" exclusive.

But first tonight, the Clinton news network is now unraveling before your eyes. It is now being exposed for what it really is, fake news, anti-Trump propaganda and a political smear machine. And that's tonight's "Opening Monologue."

All right, the "Clinton News Network," which is constantly competing with NBC News to be the most anti-Trump news outlet in the country, is under fire yet again, once again pushing fake news.

Now, three employees supposedly resigned last night after the network had to retract a completely false story about a Trump ally, friend of mine, Anthony Scaramucci, claiming that he was being investigated for colluding with the Russians through dealings with a Russian investment fund.

Now President Trump rightly slammed CNN once again and the rest of the destroy Trump media on Twitter today, writing, quote, "Fake news CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russia stories. Ratings are way down." The president continued, "So they caught fake news CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS, ABC? What about the failing New York Times and Washington Post? They're all fake news."

Now, CNN is claiming that the only reason this hit-piece article was published was because, quote, "standard editorial processes were not followed." Now, CNN may want to review those so-called editorial processes that they have because they've been forced to now retract several other fake news stories -- in other words, lies to the American people -- in just the past month alone.

For example, on June 16th, CNN, well, they had to delete a tweet and issue a correction for claiming that only Democrats were praying before the congressional baseball game. I was there. Not true.

And just before, one day, one day before that, CNN senior White House correspondent, the very angry Jim Acosta, tweeted and then had to remove fake news about President Trump not visiting Congressman Steve Scalise in the hospital.

Of course, that's not all. Earlier this month, before the former FBI Director James Comey's congressional testimony, well, CNN had to again change a story that falsely stated that Comey would contradict President Trump's statements about not being under investigation by the FBI.

Now, all that appears to just be the beginning of the network's problems, because today, James O'Keefe, Project Veritas, well, they came out with a new video that apparently shows a CNN producer admitting the network's massive anti-Trump agenda. Now, Fox News has not been able to independently verify the content of the video. But here are some of the key parts. Take a look.

BONIFIELD: Our ratings are incredible right now. My boss a couple days -- yesterday, we were having a discussion about (INAUDIBLE) He goes, he's like, "I just want you to know what we're up against here." And he goes, "Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords, and for a day-and-a-half, we covered the climate accords, and the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said, 'Good job, everybody, covering the climate accords.But we're done with that, let's get back to Russia.'"

JOURNALIST: The CEO?

BONIFIELD: Yes.

JOURNALIST: Oh my God!

BONIFIELD: So -- so even the climate accords, he was, like, "OK, a day or so, but we're moving back to Russia."

BONIFIELD: I think (INAUDIBLE) like, liberal CNN viewers who want to see Trump really get scrutinized. And I think if we would have behaved that way with President Obama, and scrutinized everything that he was doing, which was much needed, as we apply to Donald Trump, I think our viewers would have been turned off.

JOURNALIST: But honestly, you think the whole Russia (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is just like (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

BONIFIELD: I could be (EXPLETIVE DELETED). It's mostly (EXPLETIVE DELETED) right now. Like, we don't have any giant proof that -- then they say, "Well, there's still an investigation going on." And they're, like, "yes!" I don't know, if you're finding something new, we'd know about it. The way these leaks happen (INAUDIBLE) they leak. If it was something really good, it would leak. So I think the president is probably right to say, like, "Look, you are witch hunting. Like, you have no smoking gun. You have no real proof."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, in response to this very damning video, CNN issued a short statement. It read, in part, quote, "CNN stands by our medical producer. Diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong. We welcome it. We embrace it."

I'm actually glad this producer will not be losing his job simply for being honest and truthful. But here's what is so ridiculous about that statement. CNN didn't address, didn't even bother to react to the network president, Jeff Zucker's, comments about, quote, "getting back to Russia" and using the false Russia collusion conspiracy theory to drive up ratings for money.

And by the way, the blame on all of this should be at the feet of Jeff Zucker. And if anyone faces consequences here, it should be Zucker. As we have explained, Zucker is the person who is overseeing and steering CNN and the destroy Trump fake news coverage over there.

And here's the funny part. Take a look at this headline from earlier this month. "Jeff Zucker: Viewers trust CNN 'more than ever.'" Only someone like Zucker who leads a fake news network that constantly pushes conspiracy theories and fake news -- you know, it's bizarre he'd try to make that claim.

CNN has now gone overboard. They've jumped the shark. They're completely biased. And by the way, they are now one of the preeminent pushers of the fake news propaganda in the country today. They have an agenda, take down the president.

Look at a recent Harvard study, of all places. From January 20 until the end of April, 93 percent -- a whopping 93 percent! -- of CNN's coverage of President Trump was negative. Now, I said last night on Twitter that I think Zucker -- he needs to face the consequences. He is a left-wing ideologue. He doesn't care about facts or truth or getting any stories right. He is a Trump-hating political operative who's pretending to be the president of an unbiased news network!

Well, with all due respect, as you know, Zucker and CNN are not alone. Now, the mainstream destroy Trump media so-called journalists -- there's a ton of them. And here's more proof, by the way, of exactly what we've been exposing.

Our friends over at Media Research and their center have put together this chart analyzing ABC, NBC, CBS and their newscasts for over a month. What did the MRC find? Well, that the newscasts have a clear obsession over Trump, Russia, Comey and the investigation despite, of course, no evidence so far of any actual wrongdoing.

Now, instead of obsessing over fake news, Russia collusion, conspiracy theories, black helicopter theories, the destroy Trump media should be focusing on real scandals that they have been ignoring for months. We have been covering them. Here are the top six.

James Comey, remember, had his friend leak the memo to The New York Times to bring about a special counsel. Now, Comey may have committed a crime by unlawfully removing FBI property, which could be a violation of the Federal Records Act.

And according to Judicial Watch, by the way, Loretta Lynch -- look at her, obstructing justice. Bipartisan group of senators, now they're calling for an investigation into this. Why isn't the media? Remember, Lynch told Comey to call the Clinton email investigation a "matter." By the way, Clinton talking points. And we also know that Lynch met Bill Clinton on the tarmac for 40 minutes before Comey let Hillary go free. And by the way, after saying she was extremely careless in her handling of top secret and classified information and destroying classified information.

Now, also, number three, speaking of Hillary, her email server that we just described -- well, that deserves an investigation and, frankly, a grand jury because, as we've been explaining, the original one was compromised by Comey and Lynch.

And then, of course, number four. There's also the Clinton-Russia collusion Uranium One deal, real collusion! Hillary, secretary of state, signed off 20 percent America's uranium going to Vladimir Putin, the foundational material for a nuclear weapon! And while people who were involved in that deal, by the way, at the same time are kicking back millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and her husband's doubling his speaking fees in Moscow.

Now, the only law in this case that we know was broken in this whole Russia collusion story was, of course, the unmasking and the leaking of intelligence against Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. And he's paid a price for that. That's a felony, a violation. That's the Espionage Act.

And finally, number six, special counsel Mueller is inexcusable, his illegal, many conflicts of interest and investigative creep here. And of course, Mueller, best friends with Comey. Also, members of Mueller's team. Let's see. He picks one of Hillary's lawyers and picks people that donated to Obama and Hillary Clinton to investigate Donald Trump? Are you serious? And one of the lawyers that represented the Clinton Foundation.

Now, those are the stories we're helping the media hear. Those are the scandals that the media should be focused on instead of the destroying of the president, like CNN, like NBC, like the major networks, like The Washington Post and The New York Times.

HANNITY: They've all colluded! The Wikileaks showed they all colluded with a Hillary!

INGRAHAM: Yes! So (INAUDIBLE) I mean, that was a classic one.

HANNITY: That's true.

INGRAHAM: Wasn't that almost -- more than a year ago. It was in March of 2016.

HANNITY: I stand corrected. But that's not a crime. The other ones I think are crime where you got real ethical problems.

INGRAHAM: Right. Well, it's all -- she ultimately resigned from the network in the fall. But remember CNN stood by and claimed that none of that was true, despite the fact that Wikileaks had the thread that they published in October showing that, in fact, she said, From time to time, I get questions in advance, et cetera, et cetera, and sent them on. That's just another in a long list of problems that CNN has had.

And I was theorizing today in Lifezette, which you can read the story on Lifezette.com, that Jeff Zucker received a lot of criticism -- he's the president of CNN -- he received an enormous amount of criticism, Sean, for airing so many of the Trump rallies during the campaign.

And you do get the sense that this obsession with Russia now is -- there's something that seems like it's, like, almost atoning for the past since of giving Donald Trump such a wide platform during the campaign because he's been slammed by the left. And since the victory by Donald Trump, he's had to go to Harvard, some symposium at Harvard, all these students are getting up and complaining...

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Yes!

INGRAHAM: ... about CNN. You get the sense that he's trying to...

HANNITY: Don't make me laugh. This is too serious.

INGRAHAM: This is, like, major expiation. Yes.

HANNITY: All right, but you know, I wasn't actually going to run -- I told James O'Keefe I admire his work a lot and he gets unfairly tarnished, because he's done a lot of good work over the years. And I almost didn't want to run it until they put out a statement. I thought they were going to fire this poor guy for just speaking honestly and truthfully. And I was actually looking and making calls today, in case he got fired, to try and find the poor guy a job. But now that they're not going to fire him -- this says a lot about Zucker. This identifies what his agenda is. Why would Time-Warner keep an obviously abusively biased leader that's destroying their brand and in a witch hunt for the president?

INGRAHAM: I don't see how any of this really makes sense. I think CNN has some -- has some good reporters. I think there are people over there who want to do a good job.

HANNITY: Like who?

INGRAHAM: I don't want -- I don't want -- I don't want to tar the whole place. Well, let me work on thinking of the list. By the end of the segment, I'll come up with it!

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: I don't think it's -- I don't...

HANNITY: OK. I'm glad they all top of mind to you.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: (INAUDIBLE) let me -- they have good people. I can't think of one now, but I'll tell you later.

INGRAHAM: Well, you know, I will say this. I will say this. I've always actually liked Jake Tapper and I like Wolf Blitzer. I mean, I really do like both of them.

HANNITY: He's lost it.

INGRAHAM: I think at times -- I think Trump has changed a lot of these people. I think they -- you know, they're probably Democrats. I'm sure they're Democrats. But I don't know for a fact, but I imagine they are. But I do think the victory of Trump really has been a difficult hurdle, intellectual hurdle, political hurdle, journalistic hurdle for these people to clear. I really think they're having trouble. They're having trouble functioning.

HANNITY: Yes. You know...

INGRAHAM: And I know they're upset. They want more access. I get all that. But this stuff -- you know, at least they pushed these three reporters out, but I think this is the tip of the iceberg. And I -- I don't -- you know, they've had a lot of problems they're going to have to deal with.

HANNITY: All right, so if we take my list of six, and yes, I'll add Wikileaks exposing the collusion -- yes, Madam Ingraham, you are correct.

INGRAHAM: OK.

HANNITY: I think that is important. But they really -- there's a part of me that is, like, Wow, they're missing some of the biggest stories that we've ever seen or ever covered in our careers here. And they won't do it because they're so fixated on hating a president. Their agenda is clearly to take this president down. That's not journalism anymore, Laura.

INGRAHAM: No.

HANNITY: There's a real serious psychology to whatever it is that's going on at these so-called news networks.

INGRAHAM: You know what I think a lot of it is also? Alan Dershowitz tapped in on this on my radio show this week, Sean. He said something very interesting. He said when he's, like, in Martha's Vineyard with all Democrats, mostly Democrats, and he's on the porch of this general store in Chilmark where he has this luncheon -- you know, he has lunch, a sandwich every -- couple times a week, I guess.

He said all of these liberals who are his friends are just enraged that he's coming out and saying what he's saying about the obstruction of justice, no collusion, no obstruction when it comes to Trump. He said -- they said, like, We got to get him. These well-known liberals, We got to get him. What are you doing? You're a liberal. He said, yes, I voted for Hillary Clinton, but you guys have to beat him at the ballot box.

And I think that's the same thing with the journalists.

HANNITY: Good for him.

INGRAHAM: They've become activists. They've -- they've become...

HANNITY: All right...

INGRAHAM: ... participants in the political wars instead of journalists covering serious stories. And if they want to cover Russia, fine, cover Russia. But they ought to cover what's happening inside of the government when we have -- when we have...

HANNITY: They're not going to do it.

INGRAHAM: ... intelligence officials leaking critical information or illegally leaking information that is either false or not advancing any whistleblower interest whatsoever because they're not actually going to get whistleblower protections. These are people who are just deciding they don't like Trump and they want to take him out.

That is not journalism. That's something very different. And I think if it were on -- the shoe were on the other foot, they would be wailing about it.

HANNITY: Laura, thank you.

When we come back, a busy breaking news night this Tuesday night here on "Hannity."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even -- you could even rig America's elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: When we come back, we expose President Obama back in October saying that America's election couldn't be rigged. Now, he knew about Russia trying to influence the election back in August? Why didn't he do anything about it? Is that Russia collusion? Monica Crowley, Eric Bolling weigh in.

And also tonight, a very important mini monologue as we expose the most arrogant, obnoxious White House reporter who complains daily that he doesn't get enough attention, big crybaby, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So Democrats and members of the destroy Trump media -- they have been pushing Trump-Russia, Trump-Russia collusion and this narrative now for months and months. But now, as I've been telling you, it's now boomeranging back on them, and more directly to former president Obama. Now, remember, during the election last year when President Obama said it wasn't possible for our elections to be rigged and told then candidate Donald Trump to stop whining about it? Remember this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even -- you could even rig America's elections in part because they're so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved. There's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time. And so I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Really? Stop whining? Now, according to a recent report, it was President Obama who knew back in August that Russia was attempting to interfere in our election, and guess what? He did nothing about it! Why? Because he assumed Hillary Clinton would win. And since Hillary lost and President Trump is in office, well, now election meddling is suddenly a serious issue.

Joining us now with reaction, conservative commentator Monica Crowley and author of an outstanding, brand-new book, "The Swamp: Washington's Murky Pool of Corruption, Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It," the co-host of "The Fox News Specialists" Eric Bolling.

Eric, this fits into the entire book that you've written here. I think this is important.

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST, "THE FOX NEWS SPECIALISTS": Wow.

HANNITY: Yes, it's pretty amazing. He knew in August. He did nothing. Why do I think there's an Obama-Russian conspiracy that now needs to be investigated? He needs to testify under oath what he knew, why he didn't act, and was it because he thought Hillary was going to win?

BOLLING: Well, Remember, Sean, when he said, Well, there's no corruption (sic), like that sound bite you played. But then again, he went so far as to -- Obama, I'm talking about, towards the end of the presidency -- to slap some sanctions on Russia for what they thought was meddling and getting involved in our elections. So he's going back and forth and back and forth a few times. They flip-flop.

But the bottom line is, the beauty of this is, you know, you have videotape, Sean. You have good producers who'll pull up some of these ideas that he says on tape, and you can show him his own words. It's -- the hypocrisy is limitless and boundless.

HANNITY: And Monica, remember, there was so much testimony, no votes were impacted at all.

BOLLING: Right.

HANNITY: And Russia tried it in previous elections. They'll try in future elections. They tried here, and he did nothing! So as far as I'm concerned, OK, we've got an Obama-Russia collusion story, just like a Hillary-Russia collusion story on Uranium One.

CROWLEY: So let's get this straight, Sean. It was President Obama and Secretary Clinton who launched the Russian reset to try to gain -- really improve relations with Russia. It was Barack Obama who told then Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he would have increased flexibility after his reelection in 2012. And it was President Obama who chose to do nothing when he was confronted with credible intelligence in early August of last year of Russian interference!

All of that is true. But Donald Trump is the one with the Russia problem? Yes, OK. Listen, the one who needs to be investigated is President Obama and his top intelligence...

HANNITY: Put him under oath!

CROWLEY: ... and national security team.

HANNITY: All right, there's a 99 percent certainty, Eric, that five foreign intelligence services got ahold of Hillary's e-mail server in the mom and pop shop bathroom closet and that they had all of this intelligence. Now, that's because she mishandled intelligence. I just went through six particular things we really ought to be investigating.

Do you have any doubt that the standard of mishandling of classified information and destroying classified information, top secret, classified, specialized access program information, that Hillary committed felonies? Because I have zero doubt.

BOLLING: Well, that is a huge issue. You can't take a classified document, go across the street to DelFrisco's (ph) leave on it a bar and accidentally walk out and leave it there and not be indicted for a felony. You've committed a crime.

HANNITY: Accidentally, or I was drinking too much.

BOLLING: Either one, you've still committed a crime. It doesn't matter if you did it on purpose with intent...

HANNITY: You're right.

BOLLING: ... or not. If you've done it, you've done it and you're guilty for it.

Take a look -- you know, Monica went through a couple of things that President Obama said, you know, back in -- during the campaign. Think back a few years ago when he was running against Mitt Romney and he said, Hey, don't worry. Hey, Mitt, the '80s want their foreign policy back. Russia isn't a big problem anymore. Now all of a sudden, it is, and the Democrats are pushing to spend hundreds upon hundreds...

HANNITY: Hey, listen...

BOLLING: ... of millions of dollars investigating Donald Trump now?

HANNITY: And Monica, you know, when he said to Medvedev, I only have one more election, after the election, I'll have more flexibility, sounded like he was kind of colluding with Vladimir in a way that he didn't want the American people to know about.

CROWLEY: Yes. And nobody ever followed up with President Obama and said, What exactly did you mean by that? Look, what we know now is he had credible intelligence from his top intelligence folks, including the CIA director, John Brennan, in early August of 2016 of Russian meddling and he chose to do nothing. Why? Because he didn't want to play into Donald Trump's theme that the election could be rigged. And he didn't want to discredit the outcome and the expected Hillary Clinton win. That's why he chose to do nothing until after November's election and Donald Trump was the president-elect!

HANNITY: Good to see you guys. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: By the way, Eric, congratulations on the book.

CROWLEY: Yes.

HANNITY: And there is a swamp that needs to be drained.

And coming up next, an explosive report you do not want to miss. Sarah Carter, John Solomon, Circa News, are here tonight. Did the FBI open a case against retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn as a form of retaliation? Sara and John have new information, along with Jay Sekulow.

Also tonight, our mini monologue. We will expose the single most obnoxious, arrogant, combative, biased White House reporter who's constantly whining about not having access.

And also later tonight, did the Obama administration have the chance to kill al Baghdadi and let it go? Another Obama White House failure in terms of safety and security straight ahead.

Senate Republicans have delayed a vote on a bill that would repeal and replace Obamacare. A procedural vote slated for this week will now be held after the Fourth of July recess. President Trump invited all 52 Republican senators to the White House to help advance the measure. It's facing opposition, though, from some conservative and moderate Republicans, and there simply aren't enough votes to pass the Senate bill.

And another cyber-attack is crippling computer systems around the world. It started in the Ukraine and quickly spread, paralyzing hospitals, government offices, and businesses. Ukraine appears to be the hardest hit followed by Russia. And the drug maker Merck and the owner of food brands that include Oreo and Nabisco were among those targeted here in the U.S. It's still unclear whose behind that most recent attack.

I'm Marianne Rafferty. Now back to "Hannity."

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity."

So there is an explosive new report tonight by Circa News' Sara Carter and John Solomon. The report is entitled, quote, "Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe?" It reads in part, quote, "The FBI launched a criminal probe against the former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn two years after the retired army general roiled the bureau's leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination according to documents and interviews."

This is big. Joining us now from Circa News, Sara Carter and John Solomon, and the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice as well as the president's attorney, Jay Sekulow. Sara, let's start with this explosive report. So did the FBI retaliate against General Flynn? Seems like there's a lot of evidence emerging yes.

SARA CARTER, REPORTER, CIRCA NEWS: Well, and there's a lot of concern, right, among FBI agents and people that were involved in the Russia investigation that this is what was going on, at least partially what was going on. And they wanted to get it out there.

When you think of Robyn Gritz, I want you to think of a woman who by everybody's standards, I talked to Admiral Losey, the letters that poured in in support of her were incredible. She was one of the top counterterrorism agents in the United States. She worked on cases like Robert Levinson in Iran and other cases that are highly classified. She worked closely with John Brennan as well. So this was somebody that was greatly admired. And what was so fascinating about this story was not only was it Michael Flynn who intervened and tried to intervene three times, he was willing to testify on her behalf, but the FBI pushed back and tried to block him from testifying on her behalf. And I think --

HANNITY: That's pretty interesting.

CARTER: When you look at all of the pieces of this puzzle -- when you look at all of the pieces of the puzzle, Sean, it's fascinating. It's a deep dive into the bureaucracy.

HANNITY: And we need to then add this to my six items that I mentioned in my opening monologue that I think need to be investigated, which I'll ask Jay about in a second. When you couple this with Andrew McCabe and the report that you guys released yesterday in a possible violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits anybody, FBI agents, from campaigning in partisan races, and then you see the money and the funneling and huge amounts of dollars for a race that never gets that kind of money. John, you --

JOHN SOLOMON, REPORTER, CIRCA NEWS: You have the guy that's running the Russian investigation right now, the acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, is under investigation by U.S. Office of Special Counsel for possible Hatch Act violations. There are photos of him wearing campaign shirts for his campaign, holding up a sign saying vote for my wife, and documents from Terry McAuliffe's own records showing that his official FBI bio was used to get him a meeting with Governor McAuliffe that resulted in $700,000 going to his wife. That's under investigation. So the investigator is under investigation. And then you take the possibility that he was investigating Mike Flynn because he was a hostile witness in another case, a real conflict of interest, real questions surfacing.

HANNITY: Jay, I identified at the start of the program today six areas where we need to be investigating. Let me go true them real quickly. One is Obama. What did he know back in August about Russia trying to influence the election? Why didn't he act? And we have Loretta Lynch, the tarmac, it's not an investigation, it's a matter. And of course John and Sara's report that she may have put the kibosh on any indictment for Hillary, that would be obstruction.

Then we've got of course Mueller and all of his conflicts of interest, hiring Hillary's attorneys, Obama, Hillary donors. Then we've got Comey, did he violate the Records Act leaking to the "New York Times"? Then we've got Hillary herself, the pay or play scheme, Uranium One deal, and then the e-mail server scandal, mishandling and destroying of classified information. And on top of that General Flynn which we were just talking about, and certainly the Espionage Act violated. I want all of these matters investigated. Has this now boomeranged back that Democrats will now be on defense for the next 11 months?

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: Well, they have to be, because you can't make this stuff up. So you have the acting FBI director -- you cannot -- the acting FBI director was a defendant in a case where General Flynn was going to be the witness. This was two years, by the way, before General Flynn had anything to do with the president's political campaign.

And then you have mysteriously now the investigation by that office of the FBI, director's office, which again is Mr. McCabe's, investigating the whole situation with General Flynn. Then you have the layer on top of that where you have a significant campaign contribution coming from Terry McAuliffe's campaign to the wife of the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And all of this is going on simultaneously. And you say to yourself, first of all it's not fair to the president. But the American people should be saying, this is an outrage. Why is this OK in the United States? And the answer is, it's not. And it certainly should be investigated.

HANNITY: Let me ask Sara and John. I want to ask you. Sara, have I hit on the six things that really need to be investigated here, and now adding yours as seven.

CARTER: Absolutely. I think they need to be investigated. People need to ask questions. Why didn't McCabe recuse himself from this? It is apparent conflict of interest. It violated -- and now we look at Terry McAuliffe. Remember Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, was also under investigation at the time.

HANNITY: The Clinton are friends, their best friends.

CARTER: Absolutely true. And so you have this very seedy appearance of things not actually operating on the up and up. So there are a lot of questions here. People have to really look at the facts here and see what was going on.

And one more thing, Sean, when you look at Robyn Gritz, Robyn Gritz had filed that sexual discrimination, wanted to file that, and she had reported that to her supervisors. It wasn't until after she reported that, that McCabe and the FBI launched their own case against her.

HANNITY: Lynch needs to be investigated. Mueller needs to go, 100 percent. Comey not only needs an investigation, but he, too, we need to talk about his relationship with Mueller. Hillary, frankly, grand jury. Flynn, really his life was ruined because of illegal leaks, somebody needs to make that right. Guys, good to see you. And we're not going to stop. We're going to stay on this. You have all been ahead of the curve, and I appreciate you sharing it with our audience. You're not going to find this in the mainstream media because they've been obsessed with something that has been false.

When we come back, you'll meet the man who says the Obama administration had the chance to take out the leader of ISIS, but because of rules of engagement didn't do it. How is that possible? That's coming up.

But first tonight, we reveal the most obnoxious, the most arrogant, the most combative, most partisan, vicious White House reporter who whines every day he doesn't have access, he doesn't get his questions answered. A special "Hannity" mini monologue straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So over the past few weeks CNN has really made great strides in solidifying their position as one of America's premiere fake news networks. Naturally one of its top pushers of fake news is none other than the so arrogant, combative, and, frankly, whiney senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Now that the administration is forcing Acosta out of the spotlight by hosting a few audio-only press briefings because they only want to play gotcha, CNN's White House darling is really starting to become unhinged, kind of like liberal Joe. And that is the subject of tonight's mini monologue.

So like a plant needs sunlight, Jim Acosta apparently needs a camera. During yesterday's audio only press briefing, a clearly shaken Acosta demanded Sean Spicer turn those cameras back on. Listen to the arrogance.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There's no camera on, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Maybe you should turn the cameras on, Sean. We don't we turn the cameras on? Why don't we turn the cameras on?

SPICER: Jenn, I'm sorry that you have to -- Jenn, go ahead.

ACOSTA: Why not turn the cameras on, Sean? We're in the room. The lights are on.

SPICER: Olivia?

ACOSTA: Sean, Sean.

SPICER: We'll continue to mix it up.

ACOSTA: Why are the cameras off, Sean? Why did you turn them off? Can we have an answer to that? Can you tell us why you turned the cameras off? Why are they off, Sean?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a legitimate question.

ACOTA: It's a legitimate question. You are a taxpayer, public spokesman for the United States government. Can you at least give us an explanation as to why the cameras are off?

(END AUDIO CLIPS)

HANNITY: Don't let the exchange fool you. Acosta's mission extends beyond just getting Sean Spicer to turn the cameras back on during a press briefing. In fact it appears that Acosta is very much in line with his colleagues at CNN led by Jeff Zucker who are using fake news now as a political weapon against the Trump administration.

For example, as we told you earlier, Acosta was forced to delete a tweet earlier this month after he claimed President Trump did not visit Congressman Steve Scalise when he was in the hospital. Turns out totally fake news. And that misguided tweet is only one of many examples of what is now a pattern of Acosta's corrosive coverage and biased coverage of President Trump.

Sadly, for a White House correspondent claiming to be an unbiased journalist, Acosta has a pretty extensive history of trashing the Trump administration -- isn't he supposed to be objective and fair and balanced? -- including multiple combative exchanges with Sean Spicer, White House officials, and even the president. Why? So he gets to look good for himself on camera. Is he really looking for answers to questions for you, the American people? We'll let you decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

ACOSTA, JUNE 19: It's like we're just covering bad reality television is what it feels like now.

The White House press secretary is getting to a point, Brooke, where he's just kind of useless.

SPICER, MARCH 16: There was surveillance that was done on a variety of people that came up.

ACOSTA: There's an investigation going on.

SPICER: How do you -- Jim, I find it interesting that you believe that you --

ACOSTA: Of course they're going to be looking at it.

SPICER: I get it.

ACOSTA , JAN. 11: Since you're attacking us can you give us a question? Mr. President-elect, Mr. President-elect, since you are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance?

TRUMP: Don't be -- no, I'm not going to give you a question. I'm not going to give you a question.

ACOSTA: Can you state categorically --

TRUMP: You are fake news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: You are fake news. You're very fake news.

Jim Acosta is very sensitive, and by the way, he gladly is doing the bidding of his boss, Jeff Zucker. And by the way, he goes to battle on behest of Zucker against the administration day after day. So instead of digging for truth and trying to get information for the American people, he's just digging at the administration clearly with an agenda. Instead of looking for answers, Acosta, he is looking for ways to damage the president, prop himself up.

Now, the sad reality here is that like the rest of all of these fake news networks, in this case CNN, senior White House correspondent, he'll do anything in his power to prevent the president from implementing his agenda. It's not good for you, the American people, now is it?

When we come back, an investigation. My next guest says the Obama administration, they had the chance to take out the ISIS leader, al- Baghdadi. They didn't do it. Why not? That investigation straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity."

All right, a very important question. Did the Obama administration pass up an opportunity to kill the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi? My next guest claims that back in 2011 the U.S. military had a major chance to kill or capture al-Baghdadi but the bureaucracy put in place by the Obama administration let him get away. And this week we're reminded of the brutality of ISIS. Now of course memory has released a new ISIS video which show as chilling execution carried out by children.

Joining us to explain more, the author of the brand new book "Drone Warrior, An Elite Soldier's Inside Account of the Hunt for America's Most Dangerous Enemies," Brett Velicovich is with us.

BRETT VELICOVICH, "DRONE WARRIOR" AUTHOR: Thanks for having me, Sean.

HANNITY: This is important. So there was a chance to get al-Baghdadi, OK, one of the top ISIS people at the time. You guys know where he is. You have no doubt you can take him out, no doubt you can capture the guy. And you got a stand down order. Why?

VELICOVICH: Well, Sean, it wasn't so much a stand down order. But let me give you a little bit of information at the time what was going on. At the time it was my job to hunt down some of the most senior leaders within the Islamic State. And we're talking about some of the most evil human beings on the planet, folks that are here coming after Americans, looking to hurt Americans on our soil.

And what is going to surprise a lot of people about what they read in my book is just how close we brought the Islamic State of Iraq to the brink of extension. And at the time when I was doing this, al-Baghdadi was maybe four or five in the organization. He wasn't the top leader, but when he popped up on the radar we just saw how close this guy was to the top and how very quickly he rose through the ranks. And so when we hunted Baghdadi we actually used him originally to kill the original two leaders of the Islamic State which allowed him to fill this leadership gap and eventually take over as number one.

HANNITY: And they would be?

VELICOVICH: Say that again?

HANNITY: OK, so, and the two leaders that you got are?

VELICOVICH: They were Abu al-Masri and another individual named al- Baghdadi as well at the time, Omar al-Baghdadi. But at the time, again, Baghdadi was the number four or five in the organization so he was able to take on the ranks and really have the opportunity to bring ISIS into --

HANNITY: What happened when you identified, located him, were ready to take him out or capture him, what happened?

VELICOVICH: The rules of warfare had changed. So that's what happened. When the teams had actually located Baghdadi and pinpointed him to a house on the ground, by that time U.S. troops had been told to get out of Iraq. They had been told to leave. So typically a raid that would have occurred that same night by an assault force, a team of special forces guys going in there to extract the target from a compound, they then had to essentially wait two weeks for the call to be made to allow these guys to go in, and by that time he was gone. And Baghdadi doesn't stay anywhere for two weeks. And so that's essentially what happened because of these new rules of engagement that had taken place where U.S. troops were told to leave.

HANNITY: And now as a result of these rules of engagement, now this madman, you know, cold-hearted brutal killer is on the loose, and we could have taken him out. That's a fact?

VELICOVICH: You see what ISIS has done today. At this time we were going after these guys before really anyone necessarily cared about them and we were talking out them constantly because we knew, a small group of people in our organization knew how bad these guys were. And so you saw what they did when they came back into Mosul and they took over.

HANNITY: Number one, thank you for all of your hard work, thank you for your dedication. It's sad that this happened. All of the rules of engagement, all of the guys that have been arrested protecting their platoons and put in jail in some cases, it's outrageous. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate you telling your story.

VELICOVICH: Thanks for having me, Sean.

HANNITY: When we come back, a very important question of the day. We need your help, and it has to do with former President Obama straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for the "Question of the Day." This is really important. So the president knew back in August that Russia was trying to influence our elections. But you know what, he didn't tell anybody because he wanted Hillary to win. Should he go under oath? Does he owe you, the American people, an explanation why he did nothing? In other words, confront Russia meddling in our election, why didn't he do that? Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.

That is all the time we have left this evening. As always, thank you for being with us. Remember this show, always fair, always balanced. We'll see you back here tomorrow night.

Content and Programming Copyright 2017 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2017 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.